Monday, April 13, 2009

The "Food" in the Food Librarian today is the Double-Ginger Sour Cream and Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries that appeared in the April 2009 issue of Bon Appétit. Be sure to visit your library to read a bunch of magazines - free!

This recipe uses 1 cup of crystallized ginger - serious yummy! Sugar in the Raw coats the pan...but most of my sugar baked into the cake (bummer). Look at Bon Appetit's photo - it is quite pretty and shiny.

Here's the recipe. The cake is quite delightful and rich. It gingerific with three types of ginger: ground, crystallized and fresh!

The "Librarian" in the Food Librarian is the Librarian Action Figure! [I'll wait while you giggle]. It's made by the same company that presents us with the Lunch Lady, Jesus and Deluxe Jesus action figures. She's modeled after librarian Nancy Pearl who you may have heard on NPR dispensing reading recommendations. There is a button that lifts her arm in a "Shushing" motion...oh, the stereotype! (But I doubt there are many other occupations that have their own action figure...so I'm not complaining!)

Each day this week, I'll have a giveaway! I want to celebrate libraries and thank the readers of my little blog.

Day 1 Giveaway:One lucky winner will receive:a. Cool 3-tier mini-cake set with tray. This is a 4", 3", and 2" pan made by Southern California family-owned company, Parrish/Magic Line (purchased at Surfas)b. Beaded Bookmark - Mark your favorite cookbook or novel with this bookmark handmade by the Food Librarian and friends!c. Book bag - Stroll into your library with this super light bag from the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland! The library is very environmental because it's the ultimate reuse center!

Just leave a comment below (one entry per person) and I'll pick the winner from a hat. Deadline for all the giveaways this week: Monday, April 20, 2009 at midnight PDT. If your comment isn't linked to a blog where I can find you, please leave your email or check back on Tuesday, April 21st to see if you won. Shipping to U.S. addresses only (sorry, I'm buying all this stuff myself and international postage is too expensive).

Librarian Action Figure is not included. I borrowed all these from my co-workers! ;)

To enter the drawing, leave a comment. You don't have to write anything special...but if you want to tell me about your library or a library story, that would be fantastic! Don't forget to visit and support your local library! See you tomorrow from some Tuesdays with Dorie yum and more giveaways! thanks for coming by - mary the food librarian

Last night I was watching “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” It was hilarious when Ian’s mum got the Bundt to the engagement party, I loved how they filled the hole in the cake.

I also work in a library in London and we have one of those Librarian Action Figures one of my colleagues bought it in. Our one comes with a book trolley and a computer. Makes people smile every time they see it.

It's an army of shushing librarians! I love it. I was a librarian of a sort in college. Is that enough buttering up? (hee hee) Your cake has such a perfect texture and shape...it sounds delicious, but then again I get lots of great baking ideas from you. I finally bought some meyer lemons (I've never tried them!) to make the cake you made a week or so ago. (Oh wait, you said you were going to pull names out of a hat...sincere flattery not required.) :)

Yay! Happy National Library Week! I love the librarian action figure as well as the little stack of books. As I've mentioned on my blog many times, I'm a HUGE fan of my town library. Such a great way to try out cookbooks before buying them.

Have I mentioned how much I love your bundt cakes? Let's just say, I love them enough that I added *another* pan to my growing collection - full size bundt cakes here I come! Love the librarian action figure, I had a nun one growing up going to Catholic school :) It spat sparks, which was seriously awesome.

Wow ! My first time here and I must say your website is great! Love your pictures. I am in awe of the library system here in the US. I did not see something like this in India where I grew up. I am glad something like a National Library week here. Very well deserved!

I miss the days when librarians shushed! Our libraries here behave more like a Barnes and Noble bookstore - fortunately there's one quiet room where people of a certain age can congregate and silently remember the good ol days!

I'm actually a messenger clerk at my local public library.. aka I get to put away all the books when they are returned and such. I wonder if we'll actually celebrate National Library Week.. I know I'll mention it at work when I go in!

What a cool giveaway! That bookmark is so beautiful. :) The cake looks AMAZING too...I love ginger, so it just looks delicious! And the library action figure is the perfect addition!

My library memory is of the giant rainbow couches at the school where I did my undergrad (Oberlin College)...they were amazing...perfect for reading (or sleeping, I'll admit!). I go to UC Berkeley now for grad school, and while it has some great libraries--no rainbow couches! :(

Love the librarian action figure! I spend a lot of time at the library these days and the librarians really are my heroes a lot of the time. On to the bundt cake, I have that recipe marked in BA, I can't wait to try it. Yours looks fantastic!

I do miss the library and everyone, but we go to our local library a lot. Plus I have both of my action figures (the original and the deluxe which includes more accessories) displayed here at home, in their boxes of course :-) Happy NLW!

Oh how fun!!! Ok, the cake is great, but those action figures and the mini books totally rock!

My favorite library is the one at my alma matter college. There was this little tourette type of thing on the top floor that almost no one knew about, with tall windows and a cushiony seat. I used to go there all the time to study or to just dream, looking out the windows onto the green trees, flowers, and all the people walking around. It just calmed me and inspired me when I needed it.

There was also a whole floor of foreign language books. Old books with yellow pages, so old that some books had pages cut by a paper knife, dusty shelves, curious letters on the spines - just the way I liked it. I loved getting lost there for hours. Ahhh those memories of me growing up and finding myself are so prescious to me, I can't even tell you.

The cake looks great! And my only library story is how excited I was to get my first card because you had to be able to sign your name in order to get one so I practiced a lot in order to be able to sign in cursive.

HI! I just found you via...I forget! I have too much in my reader! It is good meet a fellow librarian. I would love to show my kids the "shushing" librarian since I am more of the "roaring" variety~it is never quiet in nmy stacks.

I just took my boys to the downtown Cincinnati library this week for the first time. Boy, is it big! I've heard that Cincinnati Public Library is in the top 5 for number of books in the country. I'm pretty proud of that fact considering all the others were NYC, LA,and other much larger cities than ours. I guess I'm rambling here. Anyway, I'm not sure if I've mentioned my love of libraries before :)

I am at the library at LEAST once a week picking up the latest arrivals from my lengthy list of holds (picked up seven this morning). This shushing librarian figure would suit me to a "T" though the cake pans make me swoon as well.

You go girl....hooray for librarians and libraries in general. I am a library stalker..I take my boys to the library in my town and the three libraries in surrounding towns for story hour and puppet shows...I am officially obsessed.

I worked as a page in the library during part of my junior and all of my senior year! Loved it but I've always been a lover of the written word. I couldn't tell you the last time I watched TV. More than likely it was a sporting event too.

My first memory is of my mother taking me to the public library and the smell of the magnolia trees that bloomed right outside of the library doors. To this day I associate the smell of magnolias with books.

Oh, libraries. Aside from having over 50 books out for my thesis (I'm a college senior) I now also have Nigella Lawson's "How to Be a Domestic Goddess" out. We'll see how much thesising I get done with that lying around...

I ADORE Ginger - have no idea, why, but I just add it to everything. I can't wait to try that recipe, especially, taht I am now in sour-cream-added-cakes phase (it's great how cream is making cake fluffy and moist, yum!) hugs from Poland malgorzata.minta [at] dziennik . pl

That bundt cake looks divine. I'm a huge fan of ginger. And sour cream just does incredible things for baked goods!! By the way, my boyfriend's mom is a librarian and she has a ton of those precious action figures!! So cute!